


First Person Shooter

by MechBull



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2637611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechBull/pseuds/MechBull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma and Mack bond over video games while waiting to hear the outcome of a field mission. Inspired by the sneak preview for episode 2x08 and <a href="http://thelatenightstoryteller.tumblr.com/post/102803301996/fitzsimmons-prompts">a tumblr prompt by thelatenightstoryteller</a>. Mack’s backstory is made up, though, since he has so little of it. (Disclaimer: The extent of my video game knowledge is, like, the original Super Mario Brothers and Sega Genesis, so...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Person Shooter

Jemma stomped into the common room, intent on finding some tea that could soothe her throat. Nothing on earth could soothe her nerves at this point, but she could at least do something about the soreness she had developed after yelling at May for the last 20 minutes. Honestly, she couldn’t believe Coulson had decided to take Fitz into the field again. She couldn’t believe May had agreed! Didn’t they remember – didn’t they realize? And then, to add insult to injury, no one had even bothered to tell her about it until the team was well on the way to their destination. They even had gone dark on comms. There was literally nothing Jemma could do. So she took what comfort she could in slamming cupboard doors open and closed again as she made tea the loudest way she knew how.

“Want to play a round, Dr. Simmons?”

If anyone asked, Jemma did not yelp or jump. She was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. She had been undercover in Hydra. An unexpected voice was _not_ enough to startle her.

She glared over at Mack, who was sitting on the couch and once again playing a game on that absolutely silly machine all the men on the team seemed to enjoy so much. Did they not get enough violence in their real lives?

“No,” she replied, her voice as withering as she could make it. Turning back to the tea, she continued to mutter. “Boys and their toys. Unbelievable. Of all times to waste mental resources on utterly frivolous – ”

“It’s good stress relief,” Mack continued breezily, as if he hadn’t heard her when he clearly had. She had meant for him to, after all.

She stared at him, unable to come up with a response. Jemma had a hard time cataloguing all the different things she disliked about Mack into an accurate taxonomy, but she thinks one of the very top things was the way nothing seemed to faze him. No matter what happened, no matter what subtle or not-so-subtle challenge she threw his way, no matter if someone he claimed to consider a friend was at this very moment risking his life for no good reason, he just continued to be calm and in good spirits. It was infuriating.

“Sometimes when there’s nothing you can do, the only thing that gets you through is blowing fake shit up,” he declared as if he could read her mind, which was certainly a disturbing thought.

He held the controller out to her, and she looked cautiously at it for a moment. Then she walked around the couch to sit down and practically tore the device out of his hands.

“What insight,” she gritted out. “I’ll be sure to embroider that on a sampler someday.”

Mack just laughed, and Jemma glowered at the controller.

“What do I do?”

He took a few moments to explain the objective and showed her what the different buttons did. Once she began the game, it was a little difficult to get used to at first, but – even more frustrating – she found herself enjoying it after a while. And then seconds later, her character died.

“What? Oh no! What happened?”

“That dude shot you,” Mack pointed out, before taking a swig of his beer. “It’s OK, you can take another turn.”

She started again, this time with running commentary from Mack. He kept pointing out different places to go and enemies to shoot until Jemma couldn’t take it anymore.

“Yes, I see them! For goodness’ sake, let me play!”

Mack held up his hands in surrender and settled back onto the couch. Jemma focused on the game again, pressing buttons almost randomly as more enemies sprung up in front of her character. She leaned forward and held the controller tighter, as if it would help her play better somehow, even though she knew that was absolutely ridiculous.

“Ohhhhh,” she exclaimed, her excitement growing. She shifted in her seat, tucking one leg beneath her. And then the screen flashed and the scene disappeared. “Wha - ! Did I die again?”

“Nope,” Mack laughed. “You passed the level.”

Jemma looked at him for a second, then at the screen again. “Really?”

“Good job.”

“Oh, how fun,” she said before she could stop herself.

“Told you.”

Jemma scowled.

***

Eventually, she had been killed again. Mack had taken another turn, showing her some pointers, before giving the controller back to her for another round. She was getting the hang of it at that point, and she suspected the beer she had grabbed in place of the tea had actually helped a bit in that regard.

She was in the middle of a pretty heavy gunfight when it just slipped out. She didn’t know why she said it, and she would never in a million years have ever thought she’d share precious memories with Mack. Nonetheless, she could hear herself talking and couldn’t stop herself, as if it were some kind of out of body experience.

“I haven’t played a video game since the Academy. Fitz had this assignment for a coding class, had to reproduce a computer program just from seeing the final product. We played Mario Kart for 17 hours straight.”

Mack chuckled. “That one’s addicting.”

“Neither one of us had any idea what we were doing. We barely had driver's licenses in real life at that point. But by the end, it was pretty vicious. I said some things to Toad that would make a sailor blush,” Jemma smiled, remembering. “Fitz always wanted to play the princess, for some reason. I asked him and he just said she was the fastest. Weeks later, I got him drunk at the Boiler Room and got the real reason. He said…the two most amazing people in his life were women, so if anyone was going to win the race, it’d be her.”

“Pretty smooth,” Mack observed.

Jemma laughed. “Well, his mom is wonderful.”

“You don’t seem so bad yourself.”

Jemma jammed a couple more buttons in quick succession, taking out two more enemies on the screen. “Hope you didn’t hurt anything saying that,” she said bitterly.

Mack held up his hands again. “Hey, you’re the one that doesn’t like me.”

She didn’t really know how to respond to that.

***

Jemma curled up on her side, shoes off and feet pushing against Mack’s thigh, floating on the buzz two more beers had given her. She watched Mack play, having long since given up on the game herself.

“I lied to you,” she said quietly.

Mack glanced over at her and then focused on the screen again. “Hmm?”

“Or at least…didn’t tell the full truth. But it’s not like I owe you the truth anyway, is it? You think you know him or me, because you’ve heard his side of the story. Because you’ve been there the last few months while I was away. But you don’t. You weren’t down in that pod. And you weren’t there the 10 years before that. You don’t know a thing about us, and you certainly don’t get the truth before he does.”

Jemma sniffed, angry at the tears choking up her voice.

“OK,” Mack said cautiously. “Fair enough. But you came to me that day, so I was just telling it like I saw it.”

“That’s such _bullshit_ , that is. That whole telling it like it is thing. Who does it help, really? No one. People act like they’re so much more enlightened or mature or whatever if they’re that way, but they’re not. Being a better person sometimes means keeping your mouth shut and minding your own business.”

Jemma inhaled and exhaled quickly, trying not to cry. And then the uncontrollable disclosure thing started again, and she sat up, talking right over Mack’s attempts to respond.

“Would it have _helped_ him to know? That I thought I was making him worse? That I was sad and angry and scared and just wanted my best friend and, oh I don’t know, everything else back to how they had been? That I had to sort out my own feelings? That he wasn’t the only one who needed to recover, which just made me feel even more selfish because, really, I was _fine_. I mean, nothing happened to _me_. He made sure of that, didn’t give me a choice in the matter. And I – I just dragged him out into the field in the first place, and then I dragged him up 90 feet of water without any oxygen, and I know he hates me for both of those things, so why do we even need to talk about any of it?"

She felt somewhat crazed, breathing heavily and looking around the room, like a caged animal trying to escape. Like so much water was squeezing against the walls, waiting to rush in and drown her.

Mack finally paused the game, putting the controller down and turning to face her fully. After a moment, he began talking, and what he said was absolutely the last thing she was expecting to hear.

“I was in combat several years ago. Took some shrapnel to the torso, almost died. When I got back here, I just – kept going like nothing had happened. Didn’t stop to think about anything. And I started doing some pretty reckless stuff. I was always the first one running headlong into whatever mess the others were trying to get out of. It took me a long time to figure things out, you know? Figure out the difference between truly living and just surviving a death wish. Figure out how to deal with the guilt of coming home when so many of my friends didn’t. Eventually, I realized that the only way I was going to make it was by talking about it with people who cared. And holding onto old friends who reminded me who I was. Making new friends, too, who helped me become who I am. And, yeah, taking out my emotions on silly first person shooter video games.”

Jemma barked out a sharp, somewhat hysterical laugh. As she wiped at her eyes, Mack leaned forward to pick up the controller, which he handed to her. Jemma sighed, shifting in her seat to face the monitor again. She started the game.

“OK,” she said, coming to a conclusion after killing a few bad guys. “You’re not so bad.”

Mack wiped his forehead in exaggerated relief, and Jemma fought a smile.

“I’d be OK sharing him,” she relented, before being hit with a wave of depression as she remembered. “I mean, if I had any piece of him at all anymore.”

Mack watched her for a long moment. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

“Well, _obviously_. What did you all think? Not that it makes a difference now, anyway. He’ll never – ” She broke off quickly, shooting another bad guy with particular viciousness.

“Oh, I think he will,” Mack replied, hiding a smirk as he took a drink from his bottle.

***

The video game Mack was still playing provided an odd sort of soundtrack to her dreams. Well, she didn’t know if one could really call them dreams. She was still awake, technically, barely.

But then, May came into the room, announcing the plane was back, the mission was over, everyone was fine. And Jemma was wide awake. She rolled off the couch, catching herself at the last moment before she crashed to the floor. Then she was up, running barefoot down the halls to meet the arriving team.

She could hear Mack’s footsteps behind her, steadier but no less urgent. She saw May and Coulson talking, and Trip and Skye unloading equipment. But none of the others registered with her at all. Without allowing herself to stop and think, she ran straight to Fitz, throwing her arms around him and clinging to him in relief.

He didn’t move or breathe for a long moment, and Jemma just held on tighter. Slowly, his hands came up. They shook slightly against her, and then were solid and strong as they pressed into the small of her back.

A thump to Fitz’ shoulder nearly knocked them both over.

“Good job out there, Turbo. Not that there was any doubt.”

Jemma bit her lip, fighting against the laughter bubbling up in her. She looked up then, making eye contact with Fitz. He smiled down at her, and then turned to look at Mack.

“Yeah, I can tell.”

Jemma followed his eyeline, smiling at Mack herself. He responded with a wink that she was pretty sure was meant for her as much as for Fitz.

The End

  



End file.
